Jeffco Public Schools community superintendent Holly Anderson resigned last month, and the district has hired a successor for the high-level job.

Dan Cohan, a former high school principal who was serving as the schools’ executive director for the same region, which includes the Columbine, Chatfield, Dakota Ridge, Evergreen and Conifer areas, is already working in the position, Superintendent Cindy Stevenson said.

A quilt-like assemblage of heirloom vegetables and native flowers has made its way to the once-unlikely location of the Ken-Caryl Valley.

A community garden, a sight sometimes more common than grass in high-density urban areas, is making the tradition of growing one’s own food a reality for an affluent community unable to do so in their own yards.

The Ken-Caryl Community Garden, a modest enclosure of 38 small plots built on Jeffco Open Space land neighboring the community center at 1 Club Drive, held its grand opening June 11.

Two years after the county’s internal auditing department was eliminated, the county commissioners have now quietly dissolved the audit committee, providing the befuddled members no explanation for the move and no plan for how the county will handle its auditing reviews in the future.

Lockheed Martin Space Systems plans to cut about 1,200 jobs by the end of the year, including positions at its Waterton Canyon location, the company announced Tuesday.

Most of the layoffs will affect middle management, which is being reduced by 25 percent, the company said.

The company did not announce how many jobs would be cut locally but did say the Waterton Canyon location would be affected. Positions will also be eliminated at the company’s locations in Sunnyvale, Calif., and in Delaware Valley, Pa.

A Denver police officer shot himself in the hand Tuesday morning while examining a gun in the bathroom of his South Jeffco home, in an apparent accident.

Detective Bret Starnes, a 12-year veteran of the Denver department, had been firing a Smith & Wesson 9mm at a shooting range earlier in the day. That gun malfunctioned, Starnes said in a Jeffco sheriff’s report, and he returned to his home in the 13000 block of West Arlington Place to pick up a replacement pistol from his gun safe.

A Jeffco man currently charged with multiple counts of sexual assault on a child was arrested last week on suspicion of violating the terms of his bond agreement.
James Craig Bird, 64, faces new charges, including two counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor and one count of violating his bond conditions. Bird is expected to appear in court to be advised of the charges on June 10.
A Jeffco judge set bond at $100,000 cash, a spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office stated.